Opioid Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, we need to talk about the opioid crisis.

The 2020 data shows the largest annual increase in opioid deaths in the last 50 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 69,710 Americans died last year from opioid-related overdoses, a 37-percent increase from 2019.

In Louisiana, the opioid crisis is getting worse--and fast. In 2020, our State, Louisiana, saw a serious spike and the steepest surge in drug overdose deaths in the Nation. Louisiana drug overdose deaths surpassed a record high 2,100 in the 12 months leading up to March 2021. Overdose mortality increased statewide by over 56 percent last year.

These numbers are devastating. Last year, opioid deaths increased, for example, in New Orleans by 51 percent with 365 OD deaths, 69 percent in Jefferson Parish, 35 percent in St. Tammany, and a 64- percent increase in St. Bernard Parish. Deaths continue to climb throughout the State.

In Alexandria, Acadian Ambulance ``responded to nearly 160 calls of opioid overdoses just in Rapides Parish--an average of over one call per day.''

East Baton Rouge Parish, the State capital, is seeing significant increases in fatal overdoses. According to a local TV station and the coroner's office, 242 people died of an overdose in 2020. This year, through September, the East Baton Rouge Parish has seen 214 fatal overdoses, again, in the first 9 months of this year.

Now, the double tragedy of this is that these deaths are preventable. In 2018, Congress passed landmark opioid legislation, and for the first time in almost 30 years, the number of opioid deaths decreased. Then the pandemic hit. Louisiana became the top State in drug overdose growth during COVID-19. The pressure of the pandemic, the subsequent influx of fentanyl from other countries--all this increased drug addiction and, hence, drug death. After a year of lockdown, social isolation, and stress, the opioid-related deaths shot through the roof.

Now, the opioid crisis is an epidemic. We should treat it like one. It took a backseat to COVID during the pandemic, but it is time we bring renewed attention to the opioid crisis because, for opioids, there is no vaccine.

Over 1,900 folks in Louisiana lost their lives to drug overdose last year--again, a 48-percent increase from 2019. We must be aware that these are not just statistics; they are lives. They are mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, and friends losing their lives to addiction and being lost to others because of addiction.

It is a national crisis, a statistical crisis, and, most importantly, a personal crisis. And as the numbers speak for themselves, we feel it throughout Louisiana and our Nation.

We need to act now before more lives are lost. The crisis must be met head-on at all levels. We need to work with local leaders to make sure we implement opioid policies like the ones Congress has already passed in CARA and the SUPPORT Act. These provide resources to stop illegal drugs at the border, support the discovery of nonaddictive painkillers, and deliver treatment to those already addicted. Every day we don't take action, another mother loses a child, a son loses a father, and a wife loses a husband.

I am committed to solving this crisis and to saving these lives. Let's come together as a Congress and rededicate ourselves to solving the opioid epidemic.

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